Looking for a sperm donor? make sure he has lots of brothers

If you are seeking a man who will give you a big family, first make sure you count how many brothers he has. The greater the number of male siblings your husband has, the more fertile he is likely to be, scientists say. They have discovered that men with mostly brothers are likely to be more productive. The findings, published in the Asian Journal of Andrology, also support the theory that parents with genes for good male fertility are more likely to have boys. Normally, in Britain 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. Experts from the University of Sheffield assessed 500 men and compared the travelling speed of their sperm with their family make-up. Dr Allan Pacey, one of the researchers from the University of Sheffield, said: ‘We found the greater number of brothers rather than sisters a man has, the faster his sperm is, increasing the likelihood of fertility. Lots of brothers is also an indication that the man’s parents have strong male fertility genes, and they would then be passed on to the son. ‘The results are very surprising and could provide genetic insights into why some men are more fertile than others.’ The research did not give any clues as to how to treat male infertility, Dr Pacey said. ‘It does, however, give food for thought about the importance of genetics for sperm motility and may open the way to more studies in this area,’ he added. Sperm activity or ‘motility’ is known to be a major factor influencing male fertility. Jon Slate, professor of evolutionary genetics at the University of Sheffield, said: ‘We are very intrigued by this finding and hope other researchers examine their data sets in a similar fashion. ‘If our results can be replicated we think it provides some evidence that humans have experienced what evolutionary biologists like to call “sexual conflict”. The idea behind this is that genes that make males reproductively successful make females reproductively unsuccessful, and vice versa.’ The researchers said it did not mean men with a large number of sisters should worry, and they did not look at whether women with lots of sisters are likely to be more fertile, as it is much more difficult to measure. But Dr Jim Mossman, postdoctoral researcher at Brown University in the US, who led the study, said the findings may indicate that women with lots of female siblings are likely to be more fertile. ‘This is certainly not a smoking gun as a reason for infertility in men,’ he said. ‘However, it would be interesting to test whether the same relationships are observed in other human populations as well as in other species. Likewise, would we observe similar associations when looking at female fertility? ‘If the relationship between sex-bias in the number of children and fertility is a more universal phenomenon, then we may expect female fertility to follow a similar pattern, albeit in the opposite direction.’ Article: 19th December 2012 www.dailymail.co.uk

The length of a man's sperm affects fertility

Men have a better chance of having children if they have semen teeming with strong-swimmers. Now fertility experts say they have found a good indicator of what makes sperm good movers in the first place. A study from Brown University in Rhode Island, found sperm that had tails of a similar length were better able to travel than those with tails of varying lengths. The team led by James Mossmon were surprised to find that tail consistency trumped average length. The findings add to our understanding of why some couples struggle to have children. Around one in six couples may have difficulty conceiving in the UK - which is around 3.5million people. Couples are recommended to visit their GP if they have not conceived after one year of trying, or sooner if the woman is aged over 35. For the study, researchers from Brown University in Rhode Island examined the semen of 103 men attending an infertility clinic at Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. They found that the wider the variation of sperm length in samples, the lower the concentration of motile sperm. The variation in tail length was found to be the most crucial factor. Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, the scientists said: 'Sperm length measurements may provide a useful insight into testis function and the efficiency of spermatogenesis (sperm cell development).' It is another piece in the jigsaw that explains why only one per cent of the 300million sperm released by a man during sex manages to reach their partner's uterus, while just a few dozen reach the egg. Research published earlier this year from the University of Warwick and University of Birmingham revealed sperm has an appalling sense of direction. The team injected sperm cells into hair-thin microchannels to study how they behaved in confined spaces. They found sperm avoid the 'middle lane' of the female reproductive tract and instead crawl along the channel walls. They also struggle to turn sharp corners and crash into the walls and each other in a scene reminiscent of a demolition derby. Only one sperm enters a woman's ovum as afterwards the cell membrane of the egg hardens and the remaining sperm die. Article: 18th December 2012 www.dailymail.co.uk

Male Sperm Counts drop by a third since 1990s

Male fertility under threat as sperm counts drop within past two decades. A comprehensive study into the reproductive health of 26,600 men found sperm concentration has decreased by a third since the 1990s. The findings are so significant experts have warned action must now be taken to avoid significant fertility problems and the average family size decreasing. The study, which was carried out in France, found there had been a ''significant and continuous'' 32.2 per cent decrease in sperm concentration over 17 years. Numbers of sperm per millilitre of semen fell at about two per cent a year between 1989 and 2005, with researchers calculating the average 35-year-old man would see his sperm count reduced from around 73.6 million per millilitre of semen to 49.9 million. At the same time, the proportion of normally formed sperm declined by about a third. Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, the French authors said the study was the first to identify a long-term ''severe and general decrease'' in sperm concentration and quality at the scale of a whole country. They added: ''This constitutes a serious public health warning. The link with the environment particularly needs to be determined.'' The scientists analysed data from semen samples collected from 126 fertility clinics throughout France. All the couples involved were seeking treatment because of female problems rather than obvious difficulties linked to sperm. Dr Joelle Le Moal, one of the researchers from the Institut de Veille Sanitaire in Saint Maurice, said: ''The decline in semen concentration shown in our study means that the average values we have for 2005 fall within the 'fertile' range for men according the definition of the World Health Organisation. "However, this is just an average, and there were men in the study who fell beneath the WHO values. ''The 2005 values are lower than the 55 million per millilitre threshold, below which sperm concentration is expected to influence the time it takes to conceive.'' More promisingly, the study also showed the proportion of active or ''motile'' sperm rose slightly from 49.5 per cent to 53.6 per cent. The findings support other research showing similar drops in sperm concentration and quality in recent years. Some studies have suggested that environmental factors, such as endocrine disrupters - chemicals that upset hormone balances in the body - might be behind the trend. Dr Le Moal said: ''Impairments in the quality of human gametes (male sperm and female eggs) can be considered as critical biomarkers of effects for environmental stresses, including endocrine disrupters. Firstly, this is because gametes are the very first cells from which human beings are built up during their lifetimes. ''According to the theories about the developmental origins of health and diseases, early exposures may have an impact on adult health.'' These effects can be passed down generations by the way they impact inherited DNA, she added. A national monitoring system to assess French sperm quality is now being planned by the scientists. Professor Richard Sharpe, from the University of Edinburgh, said: ''The take-home message from the study is extremely simple - sperm number and sperm quality has declined progressively over the study period. ''In the UK this issue has never been viewed as any sort of health priority, perhaps because of doubts as to whether 'falling sperm counts' was real. Now, there can be little doubt that it is real, so it is a time for action. "Doing nothing will ensure that couple fertility and average family size will decline below even its present low level and place ever greater strains on society.'' Article: 6th December 2012 www.telegraph.co.uk

Wearing tight Y-fronts really does affect sperm counts

UK study has shown that men with unhealthy lifestyles produce as much swimming sperm as those living more sensibly. But those who wore tight underwear instead of loose boxer shorts and did manual work had lower sperm counts. Under current guidelines, GPs are supposed to warn men diagnosed with infertility of the dangers of alcohol, tobacco and recreational drugs. Infertile men are also urged to avoid being overweight. In some cases, fertility treatment is delayed to allow couples time to improve their lifestyles. But the new research suggests none of these factors has much impact on the number of swimming sperm a man produces. Co-author Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield, said men should still take care of themselves, without feeling the need to ''become monks''. '''In spite of our results, it's important that men continue to follow sensible health advice and watch their weight, stop smoking and drink alcohol within sensible limits. But there is no need for them to become monks just because they want to be a dad. "Although if they are a fan of tight Y-fronts, then switching underpants to something a bit looser for a few months might be a good idea.'' Scientists recruited 2,249 men from 14 fertility clinics around the UK and asked them to fill out detailed lifestyle questionnaires. Information was then compared from 939 men who produced low numbers of swimming sperm and 1,310 men who produced higher numbers. The results, reported in the journal Human Reproduction, showed that men with poor quality sperm were 2.5 times more likely to have had testicular surgery, and twice as likely to be of black ethnicity. They were also 1.3 times more likely to do manual work, not wear loose boxer shorts, or not to have had a previous conception. But men's use of tobacco, alcohol and recreational drugs made little difference, as did their weight as measured by body mass index (BMI). Study leader Dr Andrew Povey, from the University of Manchester, said: ''Despite lifestyle choices being important for other aspects of our health, our results suggest that many lifestyle choices probably have little influence on how many swimming sperm they ejaculate. For example, whether the man was a current smoker or not was of little importance. The proportion of men who had low numbers of swimming sperm was similar whether they had never been a smoker or a smoker who was currently smoking more than 20 cigarettes a day. ''Similarly, there was little evidence of any risk associated with alcohol consumption. ''This potentially overturns much of the current advice given to men about how they might improve their fertility and suggests that many common lifestyle risks may not be as important as we previously thought. ''Delaying fertility treatment then for these couples so that they can make changes to their lifestyles, for which there is little evidence of effectiveness, is unlikely to improve their chances of a conception and, indeed, might be prejudicial for couples with little time left to lose.'' The number of swimming sperm broadly correlates with how fertile a man is likely to be. It also often determines the type of fertility treatment that is offered. Fellow expert Professor Nicola Cherry, formerly at the University of Manchester and now with the University of Alberta in Canada, added: ''The higher risk we found in manual workers is consistent with earlier findings that chemicals at work could affect sperm and that men should continue to keep work exposures as low as possible.'' Article: 13th June 2012 www.telegraph.co.uk

Male fertility gel being developed by scientists to help sperm

Scientists are now using the compounds to develop a new gel they hope will increase the chance of couples conceiving naturally without the need for expensive treatments such as IVF.
Male fertility has been largely overlooked until recently with most treatments requiring women to take medication or undergo expensive and invasive procedures. Up to half of the problems suffered by couples trying to conceive, however, are due to the man's fertility.

Now research into a key aspect of male fertility - how sperm cells swim - has enabled scientists at the University of Birmingham to identify potential new treatments that can "supercharge" men's reproductive cells. The scientists have discovered chemical compounds that increase the swimming ability of sperm cells and they believe this can help to boost the number of cells capable of reaching a woman's egg.

They are now using the compounds to develop a new gel they hope will increase the chance of couples conceiving naturally without the need for expensive treatments such as IVF. Their research could also help doctors to select healthier cells for use in assisted conception like IVF and intrauterine insemination.

Dr Jackson Kirkman-Brown, a senior lecturer in reproductive biology at the University of Birmingham and director of the Centre for Human Reproductive Science in Birmingham, said: "Fertility treatments basically involve helping sperm to reach the egg.

"The majority of these involve doing something quite invasive to the woman, often even though she may be perfectly healthy. "If you can give the man's sperm a little more va-va-voom, you could help fertility in a far less invasive way and it would be far cheaper. "We now have some compounds, that are in the early stages of testing, which can make more sperm will swim through cervical mucus, which means you would get more sperm into the uterus. This should increase natural fertility."

Approximately one in six couples have difficulty conceiving and around 3.5 million people are thought to be affected in the UK. Although the majority do eventually conceive naturally, around 50,000 couples undergo fertility treatment each year. Current fertility treatments such as IVF cost thousands of pounds while requiring the woman to take powerful medication and undergo invasive procedures to extract and implant eggs.

Yet only a third of all fertility problems suffered by couples are due to women - the rest lie with the male partner or an unknown cause. There have also been some recent concerns that male infertility is increasing as studies have shown that up to a quarter of young men have poor quality semen.

Dr Kirkman-Brown and his colleagues have now extensively studied what influences the motility, or movement, of sperm cells. They have found that the most successful cells move in a specific way where they flick their tails in a whip-like motion. This motion is thought to be controlled by spikes and dips in the levels of calcium inside the cells.

They are now applying for a patent for a number of molecules that can help increase this whip-like motion with the intention of incorporating them into a gel that can be used by couples during sex to increase their chance of conceiving. The compounds have proved successful in the laboratory but have yet to be used in any kind of clinical trial.

Other recent findings by the team have revealed that sperm cells crawl rather than swim towards the uterus, which may help to doctors select the most successful cells for use in more traditional fertility treatments. Dr Kirkman-Brown said: "Sperm have to make their way through quite a difficult environment. On that scale it would be equivalent to us trying to swim through cold syrup or butter.

"Only a small number of sperm have the correct properties or ability to swim through that environment and we have found that those that can do that, swim very efficiently, with a distinct way of crawling along the walls. "If you can give them something that makes them swim better, then you can give nature a helping hand. What the compounds we are developing do is effectively switch more sperm into the right kind of motility to get through this environment. "We are still in the early stages and but it is showing a lot of promise."

Dr Allan Pacey, a senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield and chairman of the British Fertility Society, said that male fertility has made little progress in the past and so has often been overlooked as a source of new treatments. He said: "Men get a bad deal when it comes to infertility treatments. Faced with a diagnosis that their sperm quality is poor, there is sadly very little that men can do to reverse the situation.

"Years of research has failed to come up with anything to help them, so there is nothing proven that can be offered to them. In spite of this we should not give up searching for something. "It vital to carry out the necessary basic research to understand the problem, but unfortunately all too often this area is not considered a high priority for funding alongside issues such as cancer research. "Any new compound, however, would need to be shown to be effective through a proper randomised controlled trial."

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Men are you killing your sperm? Quality and quantity matter in male fertility

Most men don’t give much thought to their prenatal care, but, according to male-fertility experts, what guys do now could make the difference between becoming a dad or not.
Unlike women -- who have all the eggs they will ever have when they’re born -- men produce sperm all day long. Sperm takes about two to three months to fully mature, so a guy’s behaviour during the past 90 days will affect the baby he makes today, or whether he can make one at all, said Dr. Sijo Parekattil, director of urology at Winter Haven Hospital, where he specializes in male infertility.

Although society tends to focus on women when couples can’t conceive, about half the time it’s the guy’s fault, said Parekattil, who will be among several infertility and adoption experts speaking Saturday at a free conference in Lake Mary, Fla.

Among the more common sperm-killing behaviours guys engage in are keeping cellphones in pants pockets, and working with laptops on their laps, which raises sperm temperature.

Other behaviours not conducive to fatherhood are smoking; excessive drinking; frequenting saunas and hot tubs; wearing tight underwear; using recreational drugs, including marijuana; taking male supplements; and getting sick. Studies show that such behaviours can reduce sperm quality and quantity.

Ashok Agarwal, director of the Center for Reproductive Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, has conducted several studies on the effects of cellphone radiation on sperm. In one lab study, he found that the viability of sperm exposed to cellphone radiation for one hour dropped by 11 per cent compared with control samples.

His research also found that sperm count, motility and viability dropped more as cellphone exposure went up.

"Cellphones emit radiation, which can potentially harm the sperm in men who carry their phones in their pockets or on their belts," Agarwal said. "We believe these harmful effects are due to the proximity of the phones to the groin area."

A bout with the flu can lower sperm count, too, which is why experts recommend that men trying to have children get flu shots. Chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure and diabetes, also take their toll. Obesity can foster low sperm counts because excess fat causes men to produce more female hormones, Parekattil said.

When men take male supplements, including anabolic steroids, their bodies think they’re making too much testosterone and shut down the testicles, which actually atrophy, Parekattil said. Once guys stop taking supplements, sperm production can take a year to resume.

"A man’s lifestyle can impact the DNA organization inside the sperm and the surface properties of the sperm, which are critical for penetrating the egg, fertilizing it and helping the embryo get to full term," said Dr. Michael Witt, a urologist and male-fertility specialist who divides his time between Winter Park, Fla., and Atlanta.

Avoiding these sperm-unfriendly behaviours and conditions are sometimes all men need to do to give their sperm a boost, Witt said.

Besides having a better understanding of how lifestyle and anatomical stresses can affect sperm, men trying to become dads also benefit from another advance in male infertility: in-home sperm-test kits.

Although the home tests aren’t as sensitive as those in the urologist’s office, they’re a lot more convenient and less embarrassing than giving a sample at the doctor’s office.

A normal sperm count is about 40 million motile sperm per ejaculation, according to the World Health Organization. Most men produce that well into their 70s. However, of those men who have problems with infertility, about 10 per cent to 15 per cent make no sperm, and an additional 30 per cent have low sperm.

Among all men, about one in seven has a varicocele, in which excess blood vessels impair the count and quality of sperm, Witt said. Surgery to remove the veins often restores fertility.

Like 15 per cent of American couples, Clay and Wendi Harris of Orlando, Fla., couldn’t have a baby, despite trying for five years. "We were tested seven ways to Sunday" to look for the cause, Clay Harris said.

After five failed rounds of in vitro fertilization, they had just about given up. Then tests showed that Harris, 38, had a sperm count in "the midrange." However, Witt reviewed Harris’ sample and thought the sperm quality would improve if he had varicocele surgery.

In November 2010, Harris had the surgery, and afterward, "my sperm count went through the roof. It skyrocketed to 90 million." Now, the Harrises are expecting a baby boy in early February. "When we go for our weekly ultrasound," said Clay Harris, "we just stare at the baby on the monitor and hold hands."

Article: 11th November 2011 www.vancouversun.com

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Male infertility may be caused by a genetic defect

Up to a quarter of men around the world have a genetic defect that could reduce their chances of having children. Scientists have found some sperm lacks a protective protein that helps it to reach the egg.
The protein, DEFB126, coats the sperm and allows it to penetrate mucus in the female reproductive tract. It also protects the sperm from attack by the female immune system.

Without it, researchers believe it takes longer for a man with this defect to make his partner pregnant.

A study conducted in the U.S, the UK and China showed that up to a quarter of men worldwide carry defective copies of the protein gene. The discovery could help explain a significant proportion of male infertility worldwide. 'In 70 per cent of infertile men, you can't explain their infertility on the basis of sperm count and quality,' said lead researcher Professor Gary Cherr, from the University of California at Davis.

A test for defective DEFB126 could help fertility clinics decide whether couples should be given ICSI treatment (intracytoplasmic sperm injection), which involves injecting sperm directly into eggs. The research is published today in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Sperm from men with the defective protein look normal under a microscope and appear to have no problem swimming. But they are far less able to swim through an artificial gel that resembles human cervical mucus. When the functional protein is added to the sperm, they recover their normal abilities.

About half of all men worldwide carry one defective copy of the protein gene and a quarter have two. A study carried out on couples trying to conceive found a significant decrease in pregnancy rate when the man had two copies of the defective DEFB126 gene.

It is still unclear how a mutation that adversely affects fertility can be so common. Men with one normal and one defective gene, but normal fertility, may be advantaged in some way, the scientists believe. Compared with sperm from monkeys and other mammals, human sperm is often of poor quality, slow swimming, and with a high rate of defective cells. But because humans tend to breed in long-term monogamous relationships, unlike most mammals, sperm quality may not be so important, according to Prof Cherr.

Fertility expert Dr Allan Pacey, at the University of Sheffield, said: 'We actually understand very little about the subtle molecular events which occur in sperm as they make their journey through the woman's body to fertilise an egg. 'We know even less about how a man's genes may contribute to how his sperm work, in the absence of an obvious defect that we can see down the microscope.

'Therefore, this paper is an important step forward and makes a significant contribution to our sperm knowledge. 'Although I doubt that testing for this genetic defect on its own will change clinical practice, in combination with other test information it may one day help guide doctors to suggest a couple start assisted conception treatment earlier than they might otherwise have done.'

Researchers Develop Test to identify 'Best' Sperm

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have discovered a method to select sperm with the highest DNA integrity in a bid to improve male fertility. The method is comparable to that of the egg's natural selection abilities, according to the study published in the June/July issue of the Journal of Andrology.
"Our results could help address the fact that approximately 40 percent of infertility cases can be traced to male infertility," said the senior author of the study, Gabor Huszar, M.D., director of the Sperm Physiology Lab and senior research scientist in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale.

Huszar said that past semen analysis focused on sperm concentration and motility. It was assumed that if a man had a high sperm count and active sperm, that he was fertile. But there was no information on the sperm's fertility or its ability to attach to its mark, the female gamete. In an ideal case, the egg naturally selects the optimal sperm, but during in-vitro fertilization treatment of men who had only a few sperm, clinicians did not know whether they were injecting the correct sperm into the egg for fertilization. "We have now found a biochemical marker of sperm fertility so that we can select sperm with high genetic integrity," Huszar said.



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